Black Tiger

Friday, November 12, 2004

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Well, there was Egypt and cave paintings and cups and balls type stuff, then flash-forward 5000 years and there was the The Black Tiger Deck.

Let's be honest, there has been no greater achievement in magic, perhaps in the history of mankind than the creation of The Black Tiger Deck. Brad Christian should not only be canonized but we should all line up outside his house and blow him at regular intervals.

I mean, do you remember magic before The Black Tiger Deck? Perhaps, if you haven't suppressed it from your memory, you'll recall the sad, sorry joke that it was. Here's an actual transcript of a magic performance from those dark times.

Magician: Do you want to kind-of maybe see a card trick? Please.

Spectator: Do I gotta do anything?

Magician: Uhm, no.

Spectator: Zzzz. Huh-what? Oh, whatever.

Magician: Well, uhm, you see, here's this card, and now look, it goes here, but wait, look how, okay now it's here, and look, now it's this way and before it was the other way and uhm, that's that, uhm, I mean, abracadabra and stuff.

Spectator: Get out of here before I throw a rock at your head.

And that transcript is of Bill Malone performing for the president of the Bill Malone Fan Club at the I Love Magic Convention on National Magic Appreciation Day. That's what a sad state of affairs magic was in.

But then The Black Tiger Deck came out and it was as if the color that was now missing from these cards had shot up into the air and formed a beautiful rainbow and the birds were chirping and squirrels were laughing on my shoulder and I had a bit more giddyup in my step and most importantly magic was now considered the coolest, sexiest, most dangerous, and most interesting art-form ever.

And now you can't go anywhere without seeing someone with a Black Tiger Deck in their hands and a smile on their face like they own the world. Who can blame them? Why, just the other day I was at Nobu, one of the finest, most expensive sushi restaurants in the world. For shits and giggles I decided to pull out my Black Tiger Deck and perform my 12 phase rising-card routine (I use my ring-finger instead of my pinky for the 9th and 10th phases, just in case anyone is starting to catch on). Needless to say, my meal was on the house and after dinner the sushi chef slit his throat because he said he wanted his last artistic experience to be my performance with The Black Tiger Deck. We drank his blood and made love to his newly dead body (this is an old Japanese custom), but all in all it was nothing more than "just another night" for me and my Black Tiger Deck.